Accepting Unwanted Help

Photo from Elmendorf Lake by Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio, TX

Personally, I get to where I am in denial that I am struggling, and even deny it to the point that I sit there trying to convince myself that I am not struggling or spiraling in any aspect. I sit there in denial and then by the time I even question if I am struggling, I have gone downhill in a severe spiral. Healing isn't linear, it's cliche to say, but it's true. I have had that conversation more times than I can count, and I have found myself in that denial and downwards spiral more times than I'd like to admit. I recently found myself in that spiral, and it was not fun or easy in any sense. I was going to group therapy four times a week, sometimes, most of the days actually, having to force myself to get up and go. I may not have been mentally present, but at least I was physically there and in a physically safe environment. Individual therapy was non-existent in my life at the time though, it had been about a month since my last individual therapy session. I had a situation arise, and I started to engage in my negative coping behavior of avoidance, and I started to cancel my scheduled sessions. I finally told my therapist why, which in this instance, was mostly because of a specific situation of a recent trauma and my therapist being a male figure. I finally told him why I quit coming, and he tried helping me find a female therapist. At that point though, I had gone very downhill, and was still in some denial of it. I started to struggle at work. I loved my job, but I got to where I wasn't even fully present at work. I was there, but my boundaries were non-existent. Or I was the opposite, and I was too present, putting everything that I had, plus more, into my job leaving well past when I should have left, and well more exhausted than I should have been. I was working too much and putting too much into my job. If I kept at the rate I was going, I would have hit burnout really quick. Although it wasn't a great situation, getting confronted about something at work actually is what led to me opening up, admitting to myself and someone else that I was struggling, and get the help that I needed. I hate being confronted, but in this case, it helped me in a sense. With everything just continuing to pile up and me going further and further down in this spiral, getting in "trouble" was the best thing. And although I tried fighting and hating it, I am grateful for the result of that week, and that was me going to the hospital. Working as a mental health technician, there is a lot of shame, for me at least, revolving around just the idea of me going in patient and getting help rather than going on the outpatient route. After being at the hospital for about 24 hours, I decided to accept that I was there and that being there is what I needed, as much as I disliked and felt shame around it. The support that I had from my inner circle was so strong and evident, and that is what helped me quit fighting the psychiatrist and everyone at the hospital and try to leave. There is no shame around it, or at least I don't feel as much shame around it now. Do I still struggle with some guilt and shame around me having to go back to the hospital? Yes, I do, but I am not letting it define me or bring me down. I feel guilty in the sense that maybe the hospital stay could have been prevented in many aspects, but at the time I was doing what I knew and was capable of doing for the state of mind and extreme of struggle I was in. Spending the just under 100 hours in the hospital was what I needed, and I have been doing so much better since I have gotten out. I now have an individual therapist again that I see regularly, and I am back in the outpatient group therapy four times a week, and I am not having to force myself to go to either but rather wanting and eager to go to both individual and group. I remind myself that healing isn't linear, and one way to remind myself and picture it is to think of a spring or coil. Healing can be compared to a coil in the sense that it may seem or even look at times like we are just going in circles and maybe even declining, but if you look at a coil, it looks as if it goes downward at different points, but overall, it is going an upward incline. So, it may seem like you are declining at times, but in reality, you are still continuing to improve and incline. in your healing process and journey. Maybe this is the encouragement you need to keep pushing forward. I sometimes have to picture my journey as a spring coil and remind myself that overall, I am getting stronger and better, even if at times it doesn't seem like it.